It's a new year and that often means we set new priorities for ourselves, in hope that the date will spark us onto bigger and better things. Of course it doesn't often work out quite that way. Actually, what I've found is that sometimes it's more important to reinforce things I had already been doing.

Love on Tehran`s Roof
Mohammadali f. via Compfight

Case in point, I spent Monday putting things away. I put away a suitcase, lots of clothes and travel supplies, and basically cleaned up many areas of the master bedroom. That's not out of the norm for almost anybody, but my room was in disarray for a specific reason.

I'd been waiting for a consulting gig to come through. When I was initially contacted it was going to start before Thanksgiving. I had a 2-week window to get ready, so I pulled out all sorts of stuff, bought new stuff, paid money for maintenance on the car, etc. Then I waited and waited, and as lawyers and the like started gumming things up it got to the point where finally, on New Year's Eve, my psyche had enough. I just had to put all that stuff away; I'm sure my wife is ecstatic in one way, not so much the other way.

I've also done a few other things that are breaking cycles. I've dropped a couple of groups and decided against doing a few other things. I've also been proactive in some other things; yeah, I know it all sounds cryptic, but I figure no one's interested in all those incidentals.

What you might be interested in is that all of the things I needed to do I've needed to do for awhile. I've been stagnant, in a waiting mode, and when that happens the brain stops working as well, you get complacent, and things just don't feel right. I'm someone who already keep odd hours and they got even stranger and longer. I found myself waiting to eat my first meal of the day until mid-afternoon, I'd stopped my home exercises (since I put my health club membership on hold, thinking I was leaving, and can't go again until March), and I was hesitant to buy much food, which means I ate out a lot.

Frankly, these aren't good, not overly bad, but all could have been avoided if I'd just overcome the mental part of it all and got it out of the way much sooner. But life and business are just like that. When a relationship goes bad people are hesitant to broach the subject. When someone starts feeling sick sometimes they're afraid to go to the doctor to get confirmation that something's wrong with them. You'll see something starting to go wrong at work but you ignore it and hope it goes away, knowing it won't but not wanting to be the bearer of bad news.

I really do believe that the hardest things to address in life are the mental things. Thinking about cleaning the kitchen is always harder than cleaning it (even after what I went through in my kitchen recently, which I'm sharing in my latest newsletter. Thinking about making a tough call is always harder than it is to talk to the person once you've got them on the phone. Even making sales calls, something I hate with a passion, are mentally more challenging than they are once I've started talking to someone at a business.

If we can learn to push through some of our mental garbage, the world becomes clearer and easier to navigate through. At least that's how I see it; what about you?